Much has been made of the internet as a panacea in which people can interact without the lead weights of real-world race, class and gender dragging them into socially constructed categories. Of course, such idealism has been refuted after almost two decades of social science research, so it's not surprising that the world's largest online world is witnessing some rather crude social discrimination.

World of Warcraft has a population of just over five million people. That's slightly larger than Norway and one million shy of Paraguay. For a place that doesn't exist - at least in the physical sense of the word - the postmodern setting of Azeroth has an incredibly diverse and dedicated church of followers, boasting over 2.5m users in North America and 1.5m in China. The remaining accounts are scattered around Europe, South America, Africa and Asia.

In this melting pot are people who have brought their own moral sensibilities, from stereotypes to political leanings, to the brave new world. Their offline cultural contexts bleed on to the battlefields as Humans meet in epic clashes with the Undead, and form alliances with Night Elves. The ongoing social evolution contributes to the emergence of community and culture, and the relativity of powerful or subordinate social roles is continuously being re-established through the online collective consciousness.

What we know about internet interaction is that a relatively small signal in the real world - such as adhering to certain fashions or using specific language - speaks volumes to other people online. In a medium where personal clues are scant, any information is a gold mine, and contributes to how actors are viewed, with potential implications for the hierarchies that emerge. In the case of WoW, someone recently accused native English speakers of discriminating against non-English speakers based on the grammar in their sentences (tinyurl.com/ayubn).

As with most stereotypes, a small number of bad eggs have caused widespread problems for others. Virtual money is an extremely important part of WoW, and clever real-world entrepreneurs have exploited loopholes in the game design that net them massive profits for little overhead. The entrepreneurs set up real sweatshops for the virtual world in many non-English speaking countries, where employees have set quotas of Azeroth gold to farm and reap; this they do by grabbing the spoils of epic battles. Essentially, they're not team players. Enough people dealt with these gold farmers and parted under negative circumstances to generate the stereotype, and non-English speakers reportedly now have a harder time joining teams. Because belonging to a group advances both the player's access to more difficult parts of the world and the amount of money in the coffers, this severely inhibits enjoyment of the game.

And gender? Well, actions tend to speak louder than bust size in this online sphere, and behind the masks of the preponderance of online community leaders are female players whose choices are respected and adhered to. However, there are far more female avatars than female players. One source reckons 80% of online women are actually played by men. This could be considered a feminist revolution, until you understand the rationale behind the rush to cross-dress: it's common for female characters to receive unsolicited gifts in hopeful return for affections or to give the girl a boost in a man's world.

Even in fantasy lands, the virtual world continues to reflect the cultural mores of the players who enter it. Of course, these discriminatory patterns are specific to the game's communication capabilities. What is surprising is that more stereotyping hasn't emerged. Instead, the mega-populations who log on from the various corners of the globe are integrated in ways that would never be possible in the real world.

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